The week in football

Pre-season drew to an end over the past week with Dean Smith’s side registering two more wins. Last Tuesday, Neal Maupay and Ollie Watkins scored their first Brentford goals as The Bees came from behind to beat MK Dons 3-2 at stadium:MK. Ryan Seager scored twice for the hosts, either side of Neal’s strike, with Florian Jozefzoon sweeping home late on to secure the win.

The past week has seen Preston North End add the Irish duo of Sean Maguire and Kevin O’Connor from Cork City while Darnell Fisher joined Alex Neil’s side from Rotherham United. North End’s previous manager Simon Grayson has continued to mould his squad at Sunderland with Lewis Grabban and Jason Steele heading to the Stadium of Light.

Chelsea will once again be well represented into the second tier this season as Jamal Blackman, Tomas Kalas, and Michael Hector completed loan moves to Sheffield United, Fulham, and Hull City respectively. The Blades have also added Oxford United midfielder John Lundstram with Brighton and Hove Albion’s Ollie Norwood joining Fulham on loan. As well as Hector, Sparta Prague’s centre-back Ondrej Mazuch also arrived at the KC Stadium last week.

Elsewhere, Wolverhampton Wanderers added midfielder Diogo Jota from Athletico Madrid while Nottingham Forest finalised moves for Tendayi Darikwa from Burnley and Andreas Bouchalakis from Olympiakos. Nathan Baker swapped Aston Villa for Bristol City, Ashley Fletcher left West Ham for Middlesbrough and Ryan Tunnicliffe moved from West to South London to join Millwall from Fulham.

Football news

At the top of the Premier League, Manchester City took their spending past £200 million for the summer with the addition of Monaco left-back Benjamin Mendy for a reported £52 million. Javier Hernandez returned to English football after signing for West Ham while, across London, Jairo Riedewald joined Crystal Palace from Ajax for an undisclosed fee.

Elsewhere, Phil Bardsley moved from Stoke City to Burnley, youngster Izzy Brown joined Brighton on loan from Premier League Champions Chelsea, and Newcastle completed the season-long loan signing of Borussia Dortmund’s Spanish midfielder Mikel Merino.